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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23556349">Without you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyNighty12/pseuds/LadyNighty12'>LadyNighty12</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Eremin Week 2020 baby [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Armin is a strong boy and everyone has to respect that fact, Gen, M/M, Please Don't Hate Me, Protective Armin Arlert, Self-Doubt, What is this?, me writing the fifth day when the week has already ended?, omg that's a tag, some scenes of my boys when they were kids, yess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:00:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,039</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23556349</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyNighty12/pseuds/LadyNighty12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey! That stings!”<br/>“I know Eren, but you have to stop moving so I can finish patching you up”<br/>Eren pouted, but he stayed as still as he could while Armin disinfected his wounds. Thankfully, they were mild and few, nothing Armin couldn’t deal with. What he didn’t like though, was that some old wounds had opened and it only meant more pain for his friend. </p><p>Or, three times Armin felt protective and useless at the same time and the one time Eren reminded him of his value.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Eremin Week 2020 baby [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686235</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Ereminweek 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Without you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Armin talks bad about himself in this one, and it hurt me to write it.<br/>Also, English isn't my first languague so if you see any mistake, feel free to point it out.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey! That stings!”</p><p>“I know Eren, but you have to stop moving so I can finish patching you up”</p><p>Eren pouted, but he stayed as still as he could while Armin disinfected his wounds. Thankfully, they were mild and few, nothing Armin couldn’t deal with. What he didn’t like though, was that some old wounds had opened and it only meant more pain for his friend.</p><p>Yet again, it was all his fault. Same old story: some kids were harassing him, Eren went to save him and try to beat up those idiots, Eren ended up losing and needing Armin’s help to take him home. The same as always. And like always, Armin reproached himself and cursed his weakness. His friend didn’t need to get hurt just because he was helpless. He had tried to convince him fighting back was useless since they only ended up more hurt, but trying to change Eren’s mind was harder than teaching a cow how to read.</p><p>They were lucky that, after watching his son and his only friend get hurt so often, Dr. Jaeger had decided to teach them the basics of first aid. If it weren’t for that, they would be in trouble because none of the adults they could trust were around, and so Eren could be in danger due to an infection or to loss of blood.</p><p>Armin gulped, trying to get the image of Eren dying in his arms out of his head. “There, all finished” he said, blinking the tears out of his eyes and focusing on returning everything he had used back to its place. It would be rude to leave a mess in the Jaeger’s house.</p><p>Eren got up from the chair with less care than Armin would’ve liked (that bruise on his ribs didn’t look nice at all) and helped him pack the stuff away “You’re really good at healing people, have you thought of becoming a doctor?”</p><p>Surprised by the random question he could only look at him, expecting Eren to say something more but he just kept watching him, waiting for an answer. “No, I haven’t”, he managed to say, quickly averting his eyes. Sometimes the passion in Eren’s eyes was too much for him.</p><p>He could almost hear the frown in Eren’s voice “Really? Well, you should become one! You could be an amazing doctor. You already patch me up pretty well”</p><p>Clenching his fists, he tried not to sound as angry as he felt. How could he not see something so obvious? “That’s just because I’ve got a lot of practice, Eren. Because I can’t stop getting you into trouble”</p><p>“And I’ll get myself into even more trouble in the future Armin, you can be sure of that. But it’ll be fine anyway, because my best friend will be there to heal my wounds and tell me how dumb I am” Eren smiled, and after patting his shoulder he went back to work.</p><p>In that moment, an idea crossed Armin’s mind. Maybe he should become a doctor while Eren became a soldier, that way when they finally were outside the walls Eren could kill the titans that stood on their way and he could be there to treat his injuries. It would be perfect.</p><p>He could finally be of help.</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Armin held the bag with more force than necessary, walking carefully and looking everywhere so he wouldn’t get robbed.</p><p>He had bought three madeleines. The three of them had just got out of a very hard season, and he thought they definitely needed the treat, especially Mikasa and Eren. With the cold weather the inevitable had happened and Armin had gotten sick, forcing his friends to take on even more work so they could afford to buy medicine. Of course, not even that way they had managed to save enough money, so the two of them went hungry and swallowed their pride (especially Eren) to ask for money in the streets, all of that just so Armin wouldn’t die like the pathetic and weak boy he was.</p><p>Opening the door to their “home” (it was just an old storage room next to the land they worked at) he immediately spotted his friends. Mikasa was stitching up some clothes while Eren did his best to clean the cots they used to sleep with as little soap as he could. “I’m back” he said, barely able to contain the excitement he had.</p><p>They didn’t know he had bought treats, in fact they didn’t even know he had found money laying on the ground a few days back. That morning he just said he wanted to get some air, and since he had spent almost a month holed up in there due to his sickness his friends let him go.</p><p>“What do you have there?” asked Mikasa, raising an eyebrow and putting down the shirt she had been fixing. She could probably smell the bread.</p><p>He smiled.</p><p>Watching them happily eat their treat warmed Armin’s heart. After the wall fell it had been so hard to get them to smile, and the past month the only thing Armin had seen in them was Mikasa’s worried face and Eren’s impotent face. They deserved all the good things in life. So…</p><p>“Huh?” Eren frowned, the crumbs around his mouth making him seem his age again “Isn’t that yours?”</p><p>“I already had one on my way here” he lied, offering him a half and setting the other in Mikasa’s free hand “And I didn’t like it that much”</p><p>Maybe that wouldn’t make up for all the meals they missed because of him, but their smiling faces and shining eyes took some guilt out of Armin’s heart.</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Eren stumbled after a few steps, and he rushed to hold him steady.</p><p>“We’re done for now” said Levi despite Hanji’s pouting face and Eren’s weak protests. He just glared them into silence and nodded at Armin, who was putting Eren’s arm around his shoulder “Be sure he gets some rest”</p><p>He nodded, his arm going around Eren’s waist to help him walk back to the base “You heard the captain, let’s go”</p><p>Having years of practice, it was easy to ignore the mumbled “I’m fine” of a boy who was definitely not fine and on top of all thought everyone was blind or dumb enough to don’t see the mess he was right now. Really, what did Eren took them for?</p><p>Sighing, he did his best to support Eren’s weight and prayed Mikasa wouldn’t be out of her bed, because it would just mean trouble. That morning, Mikasa had a real bad migraine and to convince her to stay in bed and rest Armin had needed an hour, Eren’s and his pleading faces, and the promise that he would ensure the hardening experiments went swiftly and that he would plant his foot if one of their superiors pushed Eren to do more than he could. The problem was , of course, that Eren himself was the first person to want to push past his limits. And so today he was considerably weaker than other days. If Mikasa saw him like this, she would chew them out without a doubt. Maybe even their superiors.</p><p>Luckily, when they walked inside the base and made their way to their shared room Mikasa was nowhere to be seen. Now he just needed to get another stubborn friend to sleep. He just hoped it wouldn’t take him an hour too.</p><p>Eren sat in his bed, looking tired and without strength nor want to argue with him. He kept blinking slowly, even going as far as to yawn, but thankfully he didn’t went to sleep right away and waited for Armin to pass him the tray with the food he was obliged to eat after each experiment.</p><p>He turned to grab the tray, glad that for once Eren didn’t fight because he didn’t want to and not because he couldn’t. “You have to eat everything today, okay?” he said, giving an appreciative hum to the food. It looked pretty decent, and he knew Eren would like it, especially the orange juice. “I won’t tell Mikasa about today, but really Eren, you have to stop ignoring your-”</p><p>As soon as he turned to look at him, he settled the tray back on the table and quickly got out the handkerchief he kept in his pocket and offered it to Eren.</p><p>“Thank you” he mumbled, taking the handkerchief and trying to stop the blood running out of his nose.</p><p>His nose bleeding was a very telling sign of him overdoing it. They all knew it, and they were doing their best regulating the experiments so it wouldn’t come to that. Mikasa would have been able to get him to stop, or even to recognize when he was at his limits. It was a shame then, that Armin had been the one in charge to help their superiors out with the experiment.</p><p>As he looked at Eren cleaning his face, he couldn’t help to think that maybe, maybe someday he would really be useful.</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>"Why did you do it?”</p><p>“Eh?”</p><p>“You know what I’m talking about, Eren”</p><p>It was hard to see past the bars with the weak light the candle provided, but he was still able to see Eren’s eyes, clouded as if stuck in a memory.</p><p>It was late at night, and both Eren and Mikasa were serving their first day of imprisonment. Armin had been designated to keep guard over them in the night shift, but as he had been doing that he couldn’t escape the question of why his friends had broke military rules just to try and save him. Sure, he was their friend and he would’ve done the same in their position, but the difference was that Mikasa and Eren were important, valuable members of the Survey Corps while Armin was disposable and definitely no match to Commander Erwin.</p><p>“Then I guess you should know the answer to that question too” whispered Eren, mindful of Mikasa sleeping in the other cell.</p><p>Armin just gave an angry huff, and waited for Eren to interpret his silence as a cue to keep talking. He did.</p><p>“You really… you really don’t know?” he gave a chocked laugh, looking at him with shining eyes “I love you, Armin”</p><p>His heart skipped a beat, but Eren wasn’t finished yet “I love you because you’re kind, because you’re empathetic, because you have the craziest thoughts and the darkest sense of humour I’ve seen in someone”</p><p>He saw him took a gulp of air. “And I love you because of that brilliant head of yours. Do you have an idea, Armin, do you have an idea of just how much you matter to me?” he started to cry, but his eyes never left Armin’s “You mean the world to me. And I know it’s hard for you to see your value, but please believe me when I tell you everyone within the three walls is lucky to live at the same time as you, and that they owe their lives to you”</p><p>“That’s not true” he managed to said, pushing past the tears that threatened to come out and feeling overwhelmed by Eren’s words and the passion in his eyes that he was still unable to stand.</p><p>“It is” he insisted, getting up from the bed to kneel as close to him as he could “You have helped humanity so much, you even sacrificed your life for our sake. We wouldn’t have gotten this far without you”</p><p>Then, taking his hand and intertwining their fingers together he gave him a shaky smile “I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you”</p><p>They stayed the rest of the night like that, holding hands and basking in the peace they knew was temporary and each other’s company. Armin still thought he wasn’t worthy of such praise, but Eren’s words have gave him much to think about. Because yes, maybe he wasn’t the strongest soldier, maybe he would never compare to Commander Erwin, but he had sworn to give his heart for humanity and he would give it his all to protect the people inside the walls.</p><p>Especially the boy sleeping next to him.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I love these boys so much, oh god...</p></blockquote></div></div>
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